Orphan
by MandyQ
Summary: Draco sees his dying father for the last time. A touching look at their oft dysfunctional relationship. OneShot. Rated for swear words and momentos mori. WARNING: as though it were not obvious: character death. NON TDH COMPLIANT WRITTEN SPRING 2007.


DISCLAIMER: If I owned any Malfoys, none would be in jail or mortal peril. Therefore it is likely obvious to you that I do not own them. A lovely woman named Rowling is responsible for them and I have merely borrowed them while waiting for a print job to finish. I have made no money for writing this and I mean no infringement.

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He couldn't believe that he was really doing this. He couldn't believe that this was really happening in the first place. His father was dying.

Draco hadn't spoken to his father in nearly six years; not since the beginning of the war. When the war had ended, the Wizarding World had thought Draco dead; and Draco, ever the pragmatist about such things, decided that it was best not to go about trying to alter that opinion. He hadn't known what had become of his father. His mother, he had learned from the paper, had allegedly committed suicide in her room two and a half years prior, but Draco knew (as did most people who bothered to think about it) that she had been murdered by the 'un-named' Ministerial Guard Officer who had found her body. The Ministerial Garrison for Wiltshire had moved their headquarters in to Malfoy manor within a week of her death; all the more reason for Draco to go right on allowing folks to think he was dead rather than upsetting the happy little apple cart the Ministerial Guard had made of his childhood home.

He'd managed to eke out a sustainable existence since the end of the war with the one person who had managed to learn he was alive; Harry bloody Potter. Draco and Harry had hated each other for so many years that it ad bonded them in a way that neither could have thought possible. Enmity creates an intimacy like nothing else, Draco had learned. Of course, when Harry had gestured for Draco to follow him that winter afternoon, Draco was almost convinced that he was being taken to his own murder. However, the thought of being killed by someone familiar seemed preferable to being disposed of by a stranger, so Draco had followed him.

And Harry had done nothing of the sort. The two of them had shared a few partially furnished rooms above a bread baker's shop in Hogsmeade for more than a year now. They barely spoke at first, but now they would occasionally share a few thoughts as to what one or the other had on his mind. Draco had confessed to Harry that he read every casualty report from half the news sources in the Wizarding World because he was still looking for Orinda; the one friend he could remember having whose death he'd not heard of. And Harry had once shared with Draco that he'd once been given a plaque by the Ladies Aid Society that had been presented by Draco's own mother. Harry had even gone so far to say that he didn't believe the suicide story and that he thought Narcissa Malfoy was too much of a lady to do something so undignified as kill herself.

Draco couldn't help it, and he didn't want to; but he had started to trust Harry Potter that day. That was why, this morning, when Harry had come into their flat from the green grocer's, Draco believed the news he'd brought with him. Harry had been told by an acquaintance of theirs who worked for the green grocer and occasionally made deliveries of fresh vegetables to St. Mungo's Hospital in London (as it was still nearly impossible to get such goods within the Wizarding parts of the city and the ability to exchange Galleons for Muggle money had yet to be reestablished after the siege at Gringott's). This girl had mentioned to Harry that she'd bee to St. Mungo's that morning and that the whole place was abuzz with the news that a Death Eater had been brought in from Azkaban. The great Lucius Malfoy, who had escaped the prison twice to rejoin the Death Eaters in battle was succumbing to Atrophic Wasting Disease.

Draco didn't know what the hell Atrophic Wasting Disease was; but what he did know was that his father was lying near death in London and that he'd be damned if he didn't go. He'd always presumed that his father had died in battle somewhere. He'd been at the battle of Peles Well, and present for some of the events of the siege of Casteul Peles; Draco knew because he'd seen his father there with his own eyes. And it had reported that all had died there; on both sides. Draco kicked himself mentally for presuming his father dead all this time. In more than a year's time since the war had ended, he could have at least looked. He'd looked for Orinda every bloody day since he was able to, why had he not thought his own father worthy of such attention. Harry had pointed out the difference, of course; Orinda was a school teacher who wanted nothing to do with the war at all and Lucius was a Death Eater who thrived in battle. Of course it was no dishonor to presume him killed in action.

But he hadn't been. And neither had Draco. And that was a problem.

Draco was supposed to be dead. And he knew that the political climate had not relaxed nearly enough for it to be safe to admit to the world that he was not. An inconvenient fact, that; and one that made it pretty well impossible for him to just show up at St. Mungo's demanding access to Lucius.

And then Harry sodding Potter had saved the day again. Either of them had saved precious little from the war, but Harry had presented Draco with his most dear possession. The one thing that Harry treasured most in this world was James Potter's old Invisibility Cloak; and Harry had loaned it to Draco. He'd waited until after threein the morning to Apparate to London and had crept as silently as possible from King's Cross Station (the one place he could be certain he would be able to picture properly enough to Apparate to) the few blocks to St. Mungo's under the cloak's thankful protection.

It hadn't been hard for him to figure out where his father could be found. He would most certainly be in the small annex next to the Hospital Proper. It had served as a clearing house for Military casualties from both sides during the war and had the only medical ward in Wizarding Britain set up for the treatment of enemies of the State. Draco looked up at the doors as he approached the place; _The Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy Center for the Treatment of Combat Veterans_. Draco shook his head. He had not been aware of the dedication. He wondered as he slipped through the door if his father was even aware that he would spend his last days in a hospital that bore his name.

For a secured ward, it was mightily easy to get inside of. Perhaps it was because they knew their only patient to be a dying man, but Draco balked at the idea that anyplace could call itself 'secure' without so much as a locked door. Under other circumstances, he would have wished to tell his father of this shortcoming and demand better service. But seeing as the security was designed to keep the prisoners in and not the public out, Draco could only hope that he wasn't about to be trapped inside.

He reached the door through which he was sure that his father was housed and checked carefully for any signs of anyone who might find him out. He was grateful, he figured, for the lack of people he'd encountered on his way up here; that was why he had chosen to come in the middle of the night. However, he found it slightly off-putting that a man may be left to die alone in this place. This was the kind of thing his mother would never have stood for. This was the kind of thing that she crusaded against in the last years of her life, and the fact that such neglect was being visited on someone dear to her….

Draco could feel himself tearing up at the thought of his mother. She had never been a Death Eater, never murdered anyone, never committed a single act that could be even remotely considered harsh. His aunt Bellatrix had denounced her for her calmness and civility; saying that she was weak. But Draco knew better. His mother had been a great lady. She had been loving and thoughtful and charming and gracious and beautiful. And she had been the only Malfoy to ever have amounted to anything admirable.

But he could not cry about her right now. He had to be a man and do what he had come here for and then get out safely before he could cry about anything. He squared his shoulders and set his jaw and, confident that he was alone, stepped inside of the room where his father lay dying.

The room was bigger than Draco had expected it to be. Likely this room was designed to hold half a dozen people, and during the war it had undoubtedly held ten or more. Currently, however, there was but one bed in the place; a narrow cot at the far end of the chamber near the square windows; in which lay Lucius Malfoy.

Draco tiptoed the length of the floor until he was almost able to see his father's face. He slid the cloak from his face and head, its folds of fabric obscured his vision just enough to make it unacceptable. Draco frowned as he peered down in to the bed. This couldn't be Lucius Malfoy, could it? The chart at the foot of the bed said that it was him, but the man here bore little resemblance to the father that Draco remembered.

He was thin; too thin to be living as far as Draco was concerned. His face was sunken and at least two days' gray stubble pricked up from his cheeks. His breathing came in gasps and he had a tremor in his whole body even as he slept. There were tubes coming out of his arms that were connected to bags of goo and watery substances hanging about the head of the bed; evidence of the recent trend toward 'cooperative' or 'blended' medical techniques. It added insult to injury that Lucius was so ill and they were treating him as though he were a bloody Muggle. How could his stalwart, powerful father have been reduced to this? Draco heard an unfamiliar sound behind him. Damn. He turned his head quickly toward the source of the noise just in time to catch sight of a Healer coming through the door, and know that she had caught sight of him. Draco reached into the cloak to fumble for his wand.

"You don't have to do that," the Healer's calm Irish accent told him. "You don't have to blast me or to petrify me, or to oblivate me," she added. The young woman calmly crossed to the far side of Lucius' bed and picked up his wrist. "I had hoped you would come," she told him, smiling in a way that made her look altogether pleased to see him. "I think your father's been waiting for you."

"To die, you mean?" he asked her. The Healer moved to the foot of the bed and wrote something on the chart that hung there.

"I do," she answered with a nod. "He says he's been seeing your mum. Thinks she's come to get him. I think she likely has, but that he wants to see you a last time first." She walked over to stand next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "He comes 'round every so often," she told him. "I've made a habit of trying to rouse him every time I come in. Somehow I knew that you'd pick this time of night to come; that's why I volunteered for this shift." Draco looked up at the Healer; she wasn't much older than he was as far as he could tell, and he couldn't put his finger on why, but she seemed oddly familiar to him.

"We've met before, haven't we?" he asked her after a pause. The Healer nodded.

"Aye, Draco, we have," she answered. "I was at Clontarf with Orinda Hartlestead," she explained. "When I got my first job as a Healer, she brought you to my party." Of course! Now he remembered her. That was when he was serving on Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad and had caught Orinda sneaking off after curfew. He'd threatened to tell on her if she hadn't taken him along.

"Emily," Draco greeted the girl by her name.

"Aye," she answered; "that's me."

"You said you hoped I'd come. How did you know I wasn't dead?" Draco was very curious.

"I ran into 'Rin about a year ago. She was in town doing something about Quidditch; you know her, find a hoop and a ball and she'll manage a match. I told her that I was sorry for what had happened to you and she laughed and said not to count you out. She'd not have been able to laugh about it had she just been hoping. I knew she knew you weren't dead. I've been thinking about that since they brought in your dad."

"Is he really going to die?" Draco asked her. He was still digesting the idea that Orinda had been alive and in London within the last year, but he had more pressing things to deal with presently. He knew where to find Emily now, so any further desire for information could easily be met later on.

"Aye," Emily answered, squeezing Draco's shoulder a little. "He is. He wants to," she added.

"I find that hard to believe," Draco confessed. It was the truth. Lucius Malfoy never gave up. And wanting to doe was tantamount to giving up.

"Do you know about Atrophic Wasting Disease, Draco?" she asked, as she left his side, heading to the opposite side of the bed again.

"No," he admitted.

"It's a magical malady," she explained. "Works like wandless magic, and has a similar effect to the Dementor's kiss, really. The wizard wants to die so badly that the body begins to oblige him. It's like casting a slow and silent killing curse against yourself." She opened a drawer in the small table at Lucius' bedside and handed Draco a piece of paper and two tattered scraps of black lace. "Here," she said as he took the items from her. "He had those on him when he came in. It's your mother's gloves from when she went to see him the last time, and the paper is her obituary." Emily squared her jaw and walked toward the window, opening the curtains and the blinds to reveal the night sky. "I think he wants to be with her," Emily added, still facing the window. "You know, we all loved Narcissa," she told him, finally turning to look at him again. "She had no stomach for the sight of blood, but every day she was in this hospital soothing the wounded and the dying. She sometimes had to excuse herself to go vomit in a basin someplace, and lots of times she had to stay in her seat lest she faint dead away, but she was always here."

"My mother was a great lady," Draco affirmed.

"Aye," Emily agreed, "that she was." They both turned their attention to the bed, where the formerly still and quiet Lucius was beginning to stir. "He's coming to," Emily observed, crossing closer to the bed and taking hold of her patient's hand. "Let him see me first," she instructed, "so he'll know he's awake and alive. Then I'll leave you two be. You'll have an hour, maybe less. I wish I could give you more than that, but… well, he's not likely to stay awake for even that long, but the real problem is that my relief likes to come in ridiculously early. And she's a hateful git who couldn't stand your mother and would kiss any arse in the Ministry. I'd not put it past her to do something awful to you were she to find you here. But you should be safe for an hour." Draco looked down and watched as his father began to struggle to wakefulness.

"How could anyone have hated my mother?" he asked, taking hold of Lucius' other hand. He'd not held his father's hand since he was four years old but something made him reach for it now. He suddenly remembered himself, though, and replaced it directly. Emily placed her free hand on Lucius' forehead as she answered.

"Maureen had a reputation for treating one side better than the other, if you know what I'm saying…?" Draco nodded. It was not uncommon for field hospitals as well as those in the rear to give preferential treatment to Ministerial Guardsmen and leave the Death Eaters for last or not to treat them at all. "Well," Emily continued, stroking Lucius' brow as his eyelids began to flutter and his head started thrashing. "Your mum would not stand for that. She insisted that she never be told which side anyone was found fighting on. She said we treat the wounded here and let the politicians sort out the good from the bad once they were healthy. The two of them got into a shouting match one day over the last vial of seropotion going to a boy that Maureen was sure was on You-Know-Who's side. Well, actually Maureen had a shouting match and your mother spoke calmly and coolly and won the argument. That's how Narcissa operated. But Maureen never got over it." Emily shrugged her shoulders and looked down at Lucius, smiling sweetly as he opened his eyes. "Shhh, Lucius," she said to him as he took in a gasp of air. He nodded and then settled himself.

"Miss Flinders," he addressed her. His voice was raspy and weak, not at all the booming and authoritative sound that Draco could remember as belonging to his father. Still, he was sure that it was his voice.

"You've something special tonight," she told him. Emily looked up and frowned at Draco, signaling him to take off the cloak, as he looked still like a levitating head and his father would likely think himself insane for seeing it. Draco nodded and slid the cloak off of himself as Emily looked back at his father.

"Finish from last night," Lucius implored her. Emily cast just her eyes at Draco as though she were seeing to it that he was paying attention.

"I'll tell you more about Narcissa later," she assured him. So that's what she'd been doing to keep him awake for periods. Draco was a little jealous that Emily knew enough about his mother's last years to have stories to tell, but he had already resolved to catch up to her soon to ask about Hartlestead, so asking about Narcissa should not be difficult either. "Right now you have a visitor." Emily gestured to Draco to come and stand next to her. He shuffled around the foot of the bed and looked down into his father's weary, sunken eyes. "Do you know who this is?" Emily asked. Lucius' mouth had fallen open.

"Draco?" he answered. Emily nodded in confirmation.

"I'll be back," she said to both of them before turning quickly and scooting herself out of the room.

"Draco?" Lucius spoke again. Draco panicked. He had thought he was ready to face his father. He thought he had been ready to face the fact that the father he had thought dead for years was actually about to die. But he wasn't, and now he had no idea what to say. "My son?" Lucius sounded awful, but Draco had to pull himself together and say something.

"Yes father," he answered. "It's me."

"Draco," Lucius whispered. He sounded as though he didn't believe his eyes. Lucius turned his head to the table by his bedside and reached toward a glass of water that was sitting at its edge. The glass was just out of his reach and Lucius quickly became frustrated at reaching for it. It occurred to Draco, as he watched his father's withered hand reaching for the vessel, that he likely could not have lifted the glass had he been able to reach it.

"Here, let me," Draco offered, reaching for the water glass.

"There is no need for that, son," Lucius answered. "I can do very well for myself." Even with the hollow rasp in his voice, that tone was vintage Malfoy if Draco had ever heard it. He was being damnably stubborn.

"Don't be like that," Draco exhorted. "Why do you always have to be like that?" he snapped, much more harshly than he had intended. He took three steps away from his father's bedside before crossing back and picking the glass up from the table. "The first thing you ever did for me was hold me up and give me a drink," he reminded his father. His nanny had told him the story when he was six years old and he'd asked which of his parents had held him first when he was a baby. His mother had been very ill after he was born and it had been his father who had fed him and rocked him while he was in the newborn nursery. "Let this be the last thing I do for you," Draco added. He saw the look on his father's face change with the mention of the 'last'. Lucius nodded once and allowed Draco to lift his head and to bring the straw to his chapped lips.

When Lucius had drunk his fill, he shifted his eyes to his son. Draco carefully placed his father's head back onto the pillow and placed the glass back on the small table. "Thank you," Lucius said, a look of shame on his face that made Draco wince. He feared he may have wounded his father's pride irreparably with that gesture.

"It's the least I could do," he answered.

"I forget sometimes how many years it's been," Lucius confessed. "You're a man now. Twenty-one." Lucius shook his head. "It's been too long." Draco nodded.

"Yeah," he sighed.

"I never thought you'd come," Lucius told him. Draco frowned.

"Why not?" he asked in reply.

"You should have forgotten about me by now," he answered. "You should have gotten on with your life. Twenty-one…the prime of your youth; I married your mother when I was twenty-one."

"I'm dead, father, remember?" he asked. Lucius nodded.

"Me too," Lucius joked. Draco rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I wish I had my wand," he added.

"Your wand, father?" Draco asked. "Why… so you could off yourself properly and get it over with?"

"So I could make you forget ever coming here," Lucius said back in all severity. "I do not wish for your clearest memory of me to be in this sorry state. This is not how I wish to be remembered by my only son."

"I think I deserve to remember this," Draco answered back. "I've not seen you in years. I think I'm entitled to remember my last conversation with my father."

"I suppose so," Lucius allowed. "You deserve much more than I ever gave you," he added.

"Yeah," Draco agreed. "But we don't always get what's actually coming to us. Look at mother; she never raised a wand in malevolence and yet you see how she wound up…"

"Draco," Lucius' lip began to tremble. "Your mother… she didn't…"

"She was murdered, father," Draco snapped. "Everyone who ever met her agrees with that. But there's no way to prove it; not yet. I'll kill the son of a bitch myself if I ever find out who did it."

"Percy Weasley," Lucius spat. What? The damned Associate Minister?

"How?" Draco wasn't able to make a coherent question, but he hoped that Lucius understood what he was trying to ask.

"One hears things," Lucius answered. "I'm sure that it was Percy Weasley. Do not strike until you have further proof, son," he advised. Draco nodded.

"I won't," he confirmed. Draco sighed heavily. What was there to discuss?

"Where have you been keeping yourself?" Lucius asked him.

"Someone's been doing it for me," Draco answered snidely. He wasn't sure he was ready to tell his father about his rooming with Harry Potter, but he also didn't want to feel like he was keeping anything from his dad. Draco had always wanted to be close to his father, and he had come close for a while. Summer after fourth year the two of them had spent countless hours at the house in Coventry, bonding over lessons in the Dark Arts and a mutual love of brandy and old music. They had shared everything that summer. Lucius had been his teacher, his counselor, and his guide on everything from learning to cast an Unforgivable Curse to how best to deal with the unwanted attention of a female and how to woo the attention you do want.

Draco had fantasized that summer of the rest of his life being that way; with his father there to guide him and to be his friend and closest confidante. But Lucius had gone to Azkaban before the end of the next school year and such a relationship had never come to pass.

"Coventry," Lucius said, as though he was reading his son's mind. "The house… it burned," he said.

"Yeah," Draco answered with a nod. The land was still his, but he had no money to rebuild; not since the loss of records that had coincided with the siege at Gringott's and the ensuing chaos. "I've been in Hogsmeade," he shared. "Taken a flat with a friend."

"A woman?" Lucius asked, sounding hopeful. Draco shook his head. He wished there had been. If he could have promised his father grandchildren, he would have been glad to do so.

"No, just an old schoolmate," he answered. Lucius nodded again.

"Your mother wanted grandchildren," he whispered, his eyes glazing over. Lucius shook his head slowly and brought his hands to his face. "Your mother wanted a lot of things," he continued. "And I failed her miserably." Draco could tell that his father was crying, but he chose not to acknowledge that fact as he answered.

"Mother believed in the cause," he reminded his dad. "She never blamed you. She believed until the day she died that you would be coming home and that everything would be well again. She never lost hope." Draco knew that to be true because of something Harry had told him. Harry had said just days ago that he had once been told by Narcissa herself that she hoped the Ministry would let her have her husband back as reward for all of her philanthropic efforts during the war.

"That's my Cissa," Lucius sighed, sniffling. He wiped his eyes and looked back at his son. "I never thought we'd lose, Draco," he said, his jaw tense against the tremors that were fighting to overtake him.

"I know," he answered.

"Open the window, Draco," he implored, as if out of nowhere. Draco nodded and did as he asked, crossing intently to the nearby window and opening it as wide as it would go.

"Is that better?" he asked, crossing back to the chair. Lucius nodded.

"Do you blame me, Draco?" he asked, his voice sounding desperate. Draco considered for a moment. He'd been so angry with the whole world that he hadn't stopped to consider what he did and did not hold against his father.

"No," he answered simply, shaking his head. Draco wasn't sure if that was true or not, but he was sure that it mattered very little at this moment whether or not he held anything against Lucius.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked. Draco shrugged.

"I'm angry at the world," he answered honestly. "I'm angry," he continued, tears springing to his eyes that he couldn't fathom fighting off; "that all my mother ever did was be good to people and she wound up murdered in her sleep for it," he spat. "I'm angry that everyone I ever bloody cared about is laying dead somewhere. I'm angry that the damned garrison is in our house, that I've been cold and hungry and fucking miserable for years, and I'm bloody well angry that the one person I love who is still alive is going to be dead any bloody day now!" Draco could feel the tears on his face and he wiped them away defiantly with the back of his sleeve. Lucius reached his hand out to Draco. He patted his son's face as choked on a sob.

"I love you too, son," Lucius said to him. Draco's breath caught in his throat. He could not remember his father saying those words to him ever. Draco looked his father in the eye and smiled as best he could. "And I'm not afraid of dying," he added.

"Me neither," Draco admitted. "I'm more afraid of you dying."

"You will do well, son," Lucius encouraged.

"I'll try to live up to what you wanted for me," Draco sighed, "but…"

"Nonsense," Lucius said back to him. "You have nothing to live up to. I am so proud of you, Draco," he said. "I am proud that you were brave enough to return to the fight when you could have stayed in hiding and that you had the sense to go back into hiding when it became the better choice. You have grown into every bit the fine and intelligent man I hoped you would be. I am only glad that I had this moment to tell you that. I know I was hard on you, son," his breath caught in his chest as he continued. "But it was always because I knew what kind of a man you could become. Your mother and I loved you more than anything, Draco. You owe me nothing, son."

"I owe you everything," Draco retorted. "All I ever wanted was to be just like you… to make you proud of me. Everything I ever did was to that end. I took the Mark because it's what I thought you wanted. I became a man to live in your image."

"Don't, Draco," Lucius interrupted him. "You see what misery my life has wrought. Do not try to be what I have been. Promise me that you will do what you can to learn from my mistakes, not repeat them. I have done a precious few things in my life that bear repeating." Lucius reached out and took his son's hand in his own. "I fell in love with a pretty girl who grew up to be the most perfect and remarkable woman I ever met," he shared. "I was as good to her as I knew how to be. And together we raised a beautiful child who grew into the kind of man who thinks for himself and is not afraid to do what he feels is right no matter how difficult. Those things I am proud to pass along. But my life should be a cautionary tale to you, not an example to be followed." Draco nodded again. "I have so much I wish to say to you, my son," Lucius continued. "But time is short and so little of it matters now."

"I wish we had more time," Draco agreed.

"I wish the same," Lucius agreed. "I wish none of this would ever have happened. I wish for a time-turner to magically appear to take me back in time and warn us all of what was to happen."

"Yeah, well," Draco grumbled, "there are no more bloody time turners."

"And I wish you not to remember me in this condition," he added, his eyes downcast.

"You know how I really remember you?" Draco asked.

"How, son?" Lucius asked in reply.

"Right before my seventh birthday," Draco answered. "I remember how you let me have a Quidditch party even though mother had only said I could have a Quidditch cake. And you had the Quidditch pitch built on the back forty and we kept it a secret from her. And you bought me my very first broomstick and you snuck home early every day for two weeks to teach me how to ride it. Remember that?"

"How could I forget?" Lucius replied, as a genuine smile came to his face. "I knew that your mother would never permit you to learn to ride a broom at that age, but you wanted to so badly that it was worth it to me to try and teach you how. And you were good at it almost from the start."

"I was a better flier than any of the other kids at that party," Draco recalled, smiling back.

"Your mother threatened to quit speaking to me over that," Lucius said. "She got over it when she saw how happy you were with that broomstick."

"We used that pitch the summer after fifth year," Draco told him. "Mum let me have a party. I had a bunch of people over for two solid weeks and we played every day just about."

"I wish I could have been there to see that, son," Lucius said.

"Me too," Draco agreed. "There was a lot going on that summer," he added. "Girls…"

"Ah," Lucius' lip bent up in the first expression Draco recognized as belonging to the father he'd known. "I trust that things went well enough?" Draco laughed a little. This was the kind of conversation he remembered from that wonderful summer so many years ago. This was the relationship he'd always wanted with his dad.

"Bloody well dreadful," Draco laughed in response. "I suppose I got the hang of things after a while," he added, "but I had no idea what the bloody hell I was doing."

"Nobody does at fifteen, son," Lucius consoled.

"And I wasn't exactly about to ask mum about it." Lucius laughed fully and out loud at the thought of that. Draco laughed too, happy to have made his father laugh like that on what might have been the last day of his life.

"You'd not have gotten any answer if you had," Lucius assured him. "Your mother would have fainted before you had the question fully out."

"I guessed as much," Draco agreed. "Mum wasn't one for frank discussions about anything indelicate."

"No," Lucius confirmed, "not at all."

"You'd have been proud of her, though," Draco told his father. "The first day home after fifth year she sat me down in the small library and she answered every question I had about anything. Even the things I could tell she was uncomfortable about, she told me; everything I wanted to know. And she came with me when I was summoned by…"

"I was sure she would have," Lucius allowed. "I don't know if you ever knew this, Draco, but…" Lucius considered his words for a moment. "Lord Voldemort," he finally continued, "was fond of your mother. I'm sure she felt as though He would be kinder to you if she was there."

"She was a rock, dad," Draco shared. "I never knew she had it in her. I came home from school that year and half expected her to be weepy and spend all day in her bed. But she met me at the train and she was completely herself, only sterner, kind of. She impressed me. She even managed to threaten Harry Potter in DiagonAlley without so much as raising her voice." Lucius grinned and patted his son's hand.

"I'm glad that you had that chance to get to know her," he said. "Your mother was a remarkable woman. She had many dimensions that I had feared you may never have gotten to see. She understood that there was no need to shout when a whisper was so effective. She knew just how to act in any situation. Grace like that seldom exists in this world, Draco. You were lucky to have been able to know her; as was I. And I shall be joining her soon."

"Know that I'll do what I can to honor the both of you," Draco assured his father, tears once again coming into his eyes.

"You've been a credit to me your whole life, Draco. I want you to know that." Draco met his father's eyes again and strained to keep from breaking down. There was a noise and Draco looked up to see Emily standing in the doorway.

"She's bloody early," Emily called to the two of them.

"I have to go," Draco exhaled. He suddenly realized that he was shaking. "I'll come back," he offered. "Tomorrow night, I'll…"

"No, son," his father interrupted him. "I do not plan to be here tomorrow," he finished. Draco could feel himself about to sob and he didn't even pause to care.

"Dad…" he choked out.

"I love you, son. I am proud of you." Lucius had the most pained look on his face and Draco hated more than anything that he knew they were saying goodbye for the last time.

"I love you," Draco said back to him, snatching the Invisibility Cloak from the foot of the bed where he had deposited it and flinging it over his shoulders.

"Goodbye, son," Lucius managed to say. Draco slipped the cloak over his head as Emily frantically gestured for him to come toward her.

"Goodbye," he called behind him as he dashed for the door.

"GO!" Emily whispered harshly as he brushed pat her in the doorway. Draco saw a woman he could only presume to be the dreaded Maureen coming in his direction at a steady pace. He moved far enough down the hallway to be out of her way as she her colleague.

"Thank you for holding the door for me, Emily," Maureen said. "He still alive in there?"

"Not long now," Emily answered as Maureen went through the door. In a second, Emily disappeared behind her and the door swung shut a second later.

Draco had to get out of there. He took off down the corridor at a flat run. He felt his stomach turning as he looked to the walls of these hallways; painted in colors he knew that his mother had chosen. Draco had to admit that his mother's spectre could be haunting these halls. Part of him hoped it was true. His father would be well if she were there to greet him when he passed. And it would be tonight, Draco was sure. If Lucius said so, then it would be so. After all; it was his own magical ability that was killing him to begin with.

Draco was so relieved to have reached the exit that he blew right through it without so much as checking to see if anyone might be looking. He stumbled into the street and Apparated himself home. He found himself on the stoop of his building and he darted up the stairs and through the door of his flat. Harry was awake and waiting for him in the kitchen. Draco shed the cloak and looked at his flat mate.

"Did you get in?" Harry asked. Draco just nodded. He and Harry had really only started speaking in the last month or so, and it occurred to Draco that his flat mate might wish to hear about what had gone on. It also hit him rather suddenly that he liked that. But he was tired and upset and all he really wanted to do was stand under a hot shower and cry until he had no more tears. Then he would talk to Harry about it.

"Tell you in the morning?" he asked. Harry nodded.

"Good night, Draco," Harry said to him before turning and walking into the bedroom.

"G'night," Draco offered. He willed himself into his bathroom and shut the door. He turned on the hot tap and undressed himself as he felt the steam beginning to rise in the room. Draco stepped under the hot water and immediately felt his own tears blending with the water as it hit his face.

His father was gone. Truly gone; forever. He was an orphan. But he'd had the chance to say goodbye, at least. And his father had said that he loved him. And Draco had said the same. At least he had that. And he had Emily; a link to his mother's life and to the one friend he could hope was still alive.

There was hope for him yet.

But for tonight there was nothing more that he could stand. He leaned his head against his arm on the cracked tile of the shower stall and wept; for his parents and for the life they had intended for him. It was all he could do.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

This one-shot courtesy of Regal Cinemas, KRKO AM 1380 and KVI Talk Radio 570 AM. Again a day at the design/print machine. This plot bunny courtesy of Elton John's "The Last Song", which you should listen to right after reading this piece, because it'll tear your guts out it's so sad. More on the big story later. And I swear the next one-shot will be happy again… really I mean it. Okay, back to my other machine now. )

REMEMBER TO REVIEW- PLEASE )

-MQ


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